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Friday, April 27, 2012

I just had to un-friend and un-follow someone because he would not bashing one of my interests, so let me be as explicit as possible:
It's perfectly okay if you don't like a thing that I like, such as ponies or shooting or goth or role-playing games. That's a matter of taste, and everyone's taste is different.

It is categorically NOT okay to insult and belittle PEOPLE for liking a thing which you don't like. That's an unwarranted personal attack.

There's a huge, huge difference between "I think this thing is stupid" and "I think you are stupid for liking this thing." Not only is the latter rude and intolerant, it's also incredibly hypocritical if you have any interests outside of the mainstream, such as, oh I don't know, IDPA/IPSC competition shooting.

I mean, if you object to the supposition that owning guns and liking to shoot them means you are a violent and deranged individual who is just itching for a chance to murder someone, then what are you doing by suggesting that an adult who enjoys a wholesome show about magical cartoon ponies is creepy and immature? Aren't you just spreading the knee-jerk hate? Aren't gunnies supposed to be inclusive and welcoming?

The Rhino is still pretty thin on the ground so I figure anyone looking for one would be interested in another review on them.

Most of the existing reviews are very one sided, either pro or con.

Most of the reviews I've found were for the 20DS (2”bbl).

I first became aware of the Chiappa Rhino after seeing a picture of it on a gun forum, and I really fell in love with its style (or arguably, its lack thereof). I wasn’t familiar with the concept of a low bore axis revolver and I think that’s another thing that really endeared the Rhino to me. Almost immediately after seeing the pictures of this gun I decided I wanted to track one down, and that’s when I came to discover that they’re thin on the ground. Not one gun store in the Oklahoma City metro area had one for me to come see, let alone handle or shoot. I expanded my search to Tulsa and Stillwater and even Lawton (about a 2.5 hour drive), and I couldn’t find one anywhere. So I thought about ordering one online.

Now here’s the thing: I’m generally against this. I want to see/handle/shoot a gun before I buy one. The only exception I’d ever made for this was the aforementioned Mosin, and that was only because it was so cheap; if I hated it I was only out ~$100 and I’ve wasted more on less. But as they weren’t to be had locally for love or money, if I wanted one online was how it was going to have to happen.

As I couldn’t form my own opinions on the gun, I did the next best thing and went to the oracle of our age, Google, and found online reviews, and what I found were either hosannas or damnations, with very little middle ground. People loved the 2”, shooting it in .357 was easy, .38 was easier; or people hated it, the mechanism was overly complex and prone to breakage, and the whole thing was overpriced. One particular horror story about the 40DS breaking and taking 6 weeks to fix through Chiappa customer service was almost enough to put me off the endeavor entirely. All this made me realize how divided the gun community is on certain things that I consider to be pretty minor. Was this something I really wanted to get myself into? I waffled on the decision for a while but when my tax refund came in I decided to just go for it.

I ended up with the 40DS in .357 with the blued barrel. I wanted the stainless version but it was about $100 more and I just didn’t want to pay that much. I found my gun on Gunbroker.com, a site I’d been familiar with but never used before. The seller I found had a very high rating (Gunbroker is basically the eBay of firearms) and the transaction went very smoothly. I had already contacted a shop to handle the FFL transfer, and they’d dealt with Gunbroker before, so they were very helpful. I won my auction on Monday morning, and by Thursday afternoon I had my revolver. I was pretty excited about it.

Let’s talk about these guns for just a moment. They’re milled out of ergal (a type of aluminum alloy commonly used in airplanes) with steel barrels, cylinders and inner workings. When I say inner workings I’m referring to the things that people were complaining about being overly complex; the words "Italian race car" and "Swiss watch" come up when discussing this gun.

And there’s a reason for this concern. These guns are by design and nature very complex. Think about it for a moment: with a low axis barrel, the hammer isn’t in the position that the hammer normally is in on a revolver. If it was, it wouldn’t strike the correct chamber. Instead the hammer is internal. Actually, it has two internal hammers: one for single action, one for double action.

That spur on the top? Yeah, that’s not the hammer, it’s the “cocking lever.” The Rhino was the final design of Italian gunsmith Emilio Ghisoni (of Mateba Autorevolver infamy) and like darn near everything designed by Italians, over-engineered isn’t the right word, but it's close. "Complex" isn’t far off the mark either.

My Rhino has a 4 inch barrel in .357, with a wood grip and fiber-optic front sight and adjustable rear sights. I guess they offer it with a rubber grip and I’ve heard decent things about that, but I believe that a full sized revolver should have a wooden grip. It’s quite strange-looking, beaver-tailed and thicker at the top. It is connected to the frame of the gun with a hex-nut at the bottom.

I think this is sort of a neat design. Everyone who got a look at this gun really liked the design (even if they said things like “chunky” or “blocky”), and agreed that this grip was very comfortable. Even my friend J, who has fairly large hands, felt that the gun was comfortable; he had been worried that the grip was going to be a little small for him.

Another neat design element is that the cylinder is actually hexagonal, not round. This means that when you’re carrying the gun it always has a flat surface in contact with your body, which ostensibly makes it slimmer and easier to conceal. While I don’t know about that, I do know it looks cool. The cylinder rotates clockwise instead of the more common counterclockwise. I haven’t discovered a reason behind that yet, but it’s interesting in that it’s yet another nonstandard design element in an already unconventional gun.

But enough about the gun itself. Let’s get to the meat of this: my thoughts on shooting the Rhino.

I haven’t had an opportunity to really put it through the paces I prefer when breaking in a new gun, but I’ve put ~250 rounds through it, both .357 and .38 caliber, with the majority of those being .357, including full house 158 grain japes. I’d like to get another 250 through it because I think that if you’re going to have problems mechanically, they will probably surface within the first 500 rounds. I’m hoping to get the other 250 through in the next couple weeks. However, after 250 rounds I didn’t have a single misfire or failure to fire. I’d heard of this occurring, with the hammer not striking the primer hard enough, but this never happened to any of us out there at the range.

Recoil on this gun is minimal to the point of absurdity. The low bore axis really reduces muzzle flip by having the recoil go straight back into your hand and wrist (instead of at an upward angle), and while it sounds uncomfortable, it's actually very manageable. This also has the advantage of keeping your barrel more in line with your previous shot.

Please note this isn’t my hand. This is just a picture for illustrative purposes.

All of this means that firing full house .357 rounds feels like shooting .38 rounds from a similarly-sized revolver, and .38 rounds are like shooting a .22 (or as J said, "Like shooting BB's"). I fired 158 grain JHPs from this and then from a S&W Model 29, and I could really feel the difference in recoil even in the two very differently-weighted guns.

The things I really like about this gun are ergonomics,design, and lack of recoil. Now let’s talk about something I am sort of indifferent about (the trigger), and then the two things I really don’t like (the cocking lever and the sight picture).

Trigger pull on this gun is very odd. The double action pull is very smooth, but it is long and heavy. I don’t have any sort of accurate gauge (not owning the equipment), but I’d bet it’s in the 12-14 pound range. The single action pull, by contrast, is incredibly light (probably around 4 pounds) and very, very short.

The two things I don’t care for are the cocking lever and the sight picture (though I expect to get this worked out shortly). The cocking lever (that spur on the top) is used to get the gun into single-action (SA) mode, and it is enormously hard to pull. I can do it with one thumb, but I have to pull the gun WAY off line to do it. I don’t see myself using SA that often, so I’m not terribly worried about it, but it’s crazy heavy.

As for the sight picture, I’m used to image 3 but the Rhino shoots closer to image 1. There were 5 shooters putting the Rhino through its paces, and all of us had difficulties mastering the sight picture on this gun. I’m confident that more time on the range will iron this difficulty out, but currently I am less than happy with the Rhino's sight picture (but again, I’m 99% sure this is user-induced error and will get worked out).

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the Rhino. It’s a pleasure to shoot, it’s got a unique look (although less unique now due to the Total Recall reboot trailer**), and if nothing else, it's a pretty good conversation piece. More than one guy at the range made noises about being able to see a Rhino in his future.

Would I use it as an every-day carry (EDC) gun? I don’t know. Certainly not until I’m used to the sight picture, and holsters for these guns are harder to come by than the guns themselves (except for the 20DS, which ships with a pancake holster). But if I could get a decent holster after I become more comfortable with the sight picture? Maybe. Will I take it to the range and blow stuff up with it? Every chance I get.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Last night, I dreamed I was living with Abby Sciuto of NCIS fame -- not sure if we were roomies or lovers, my dreams can be annoyingly vague on certain interesting details -- and since it was morning in my dream, she was making breakfast for the both of us.

Readers may find it of interest that in said dream, Abby's preferred morning-wear is a black silk kimono with a pink bat pattern.

Anyway, she was fixing waffles and insisted upon adding what looked like blackcurrant to the batter, even though she called them blackberries. She explained that this would stain the batter an almost black color and would result in what she called "goffles" -- goth waffles, of course.

I explained that I did not care to eat anything black for breakfast, and that's when she started growing scales, and fangs, and generally turning into either a dragon or a dinosaur, I'm not completely sure.

The next thing I know, I'm in a field, mounted astride an animal that is charging towards an opponent. It's not clear if this animal is Dino-Abby, but since that makes the dream more awesome, I'm going with that.

I don't recall what I'm wearing, but I am aware that my Mosin-Nagant, with its bayonet attached, is clutched under my arm like a lance. And I'm charging someone who is either Sonya from Mortal Kombat, or Sue Sylvester from Glee, and who is twirling what appeared to be two rifles (not sure if they were Mosins, but they had wooden furniture and were bolt-action) chained together at the buttplate like they were rifle-nunchucks.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Two weeks ago, mom and I took our mandated CWP class. As predicted, it was basically a class on "Don't be stupid," although the instructor was an entertainingly animated good old boy and we finished 30 minutes early. After the class, though mom had decided that she wanted a Sig Sauer P238. How did she come to this conclusion? Let me back up....

Not a Sig Sauer. Read on.

The Friday before, we needed to do some qualification shooting for the class. This is essentially a formality designed to weed out those who are too physically infirm to safely shoot a pistol, and those idiots who cannot master basic range safety. We shot 10 rounds with a Ruger Mark III, and we both kicked ass (I had the higher aggregate score, but mom somehow managed to pull off 3 bullseyes. Don't know how that happened, but we are both happy with the result.) After that we took a look at the guns behind the counter and gave them a good fondling. Mom knew she wanted an automatic, but she has arthritic hands and weak arms and cannot work the slide on my Glock, so we were looking for something with a lighter spring.

Funny story: I locked the slide back on the Glock and asked her to see if she could work it just enough to load a round. She pulled and strained and then let loose the loudest fart I had ever heard. I swear, it sounded like tearing cloth! After we both finished laughing, I admitted that she was clearly trying her hardest...

So there we were, looking at 9mm and .380 pistols in various formats, and she couldn't move any of them. I wanted to say "Maybe you should consider a .38 revolver" but she had her heart set on an auto, and I believe that the gun must fit the shooter, not the other way around, so I kept my mouth shut. When we left the store that afternoon she was very disappointed.

Fast-forward to Monday night, and once the class was over my mother was able to corner the instructor and ask him "I was in here earlier and I couldn't work any of the pistols, can you suggest any?" The man obligingly pulled out his pocket P238 for her to try. Lo and behold, she could work the slide... and easily! She was elated to have found something she could operate.

The rest of the week was a combination of getting ready for Easter, and getting our CWP permits in order and in the mail. During my down-time, I did some pricing of P238s and...

This is my shocked face.

... holy crap are they expensive. As in, "The cheapest I could find were around $700, and most were in the $800 range." Now maybe this is standard for all you gunnies out there, but I thought paying $500 for my Glock 26 was a princely sum, and I needed fundraising help to accomplish it.

Not really sure what to do about this dilemma, I waited. And then, the Saturday before Easter, I saw it, Grail-like in its intensity: A glossy insert from Gander Mountain advertising the Ruger LCP LaserMax for about $350 (with rebate).

Now I realize that many of you are saying "Hey now! The Ruger LCP is in no way the Sig Sauer P238." And I'm all, "Well duh, but this one had the built-in laser (mom was really keen on the Crimson Trace grips I put on my Glock) and the price was definitely within our budget. And the LCP was a model she hadn't tried before. So if she could operate it, then this was a definite score for everyone.

Care to guess what happened?

It was like a bad sitcom. We were at that counter for over an hour, trying to find something that would fit her.
Every pistol she tried didn't work for one reason or another. The LCP's slide was too stiff, and had a long trigger pull. The Sig P238, it turns out, has a thumb safety -- and mom is a lefty, meaning she couldn't thumb it off. I think we tried every damn pistol in the store, and for one reason or another they didn't work. I don't mean, "She didn't like them because she was picky," I mean she could not safely operate them for one reason or another.

Well, okay, maybe she could have used the Beretta Tomcat with tip-up barrel, but I really didn't like the notion of her using a .32 caliber pistol. Still, if that's what it took to make her happy...

About that time, the clerk said "Let me try something I think you'll like," and he went over to the revolver case, and came back with a nice snub-nosed hammerless chambered in -- you guessed it -- .38 Special. This was the Ruger LCR, the revolver cousin of the LCP.

Amazingly, mom loved it. It fit her hand perfectly; she could pull the trigger effortlessly; she didn't have to worry about a safety. I tried very hard not to facepalm.

The facepalm wasn't about the gun, you understand, but because of the irony of the situation. When women go to gun stores for the first time, so many men try to force the "little ladies" to buy a cute little revolver in .38 -- "This model even comes in pink!" -- and so I was determined not to do that, regardless of the fact that I thought it was the right choice. Ironically, it WAS the right choice for my mother, and she's quite happy with it.

Well, theoretically happy with it. She hasn't shot it yet (but I'm nagging her to do so). Oh, and we didn't get the .38, we got it in .357 magnum because the price was basically the same. That way she can practice with .38 rounds but use the beefier .357 for self-defense, if necessary.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Regular readers of this blog know that I adore the zombie genre. This is partly because zombies are a metaphor for an uber-disaster, with their various iterations serving as plug-in variables (What if they're fast? What if they're smart? What if we're already infected?), and partly because I like placing myself in the shoes of the protagonists and thinking about what I'd do differently.

Because let's face it, if it's terminators or vampires or werewolves or aliens, you're pretty much screwed. But with zombies being more of a force of nature rather than an opponent, there is a good chance of survival so long as you're smart and aware and genre-savvy and don't get sloppy. (On a long enough timeline, everyone gets sloppy, through fatigue if nothing else.) Modern technology and materials also go a long way towards increasing the odds in humanity's favor.

However, all that goes out the window in the upcoming film, Exit Humanity:

Zombies during the Civil War? Oh hell yes. This is where things get really interesting, because the screw factor jumps by like an order of magnitude. Sure, you're out on the frontier, so there's less population density and you aren't likely to be outright mobbed by the walking dead. But... oh, and here's the but...

No automatic firearms -- everything is single action, and at most you have six shots.

Reloading can be a real bitch, because depending on date and location, you might be using muzzle-loaders. Good luck with THAT in a pinch.

No cars, just horses -- which are liable to get spooked and run off, and will be eaten if captured.

Medical technology is really primitive. No one's figured out germ theory or knows about the importance of antiseptics, and amputation is common once injured wounds become gangrenous.

So take all of that, and combine it with the fact that this movie just looks incredible, and I am SO THERE. I don't see this ending well for 99% of the characters, and I will love every gory minute of it.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

If you enjoy reading about Pellatarrum, my gonzo sorcery world, I have some questions for you.

I have aspirations of taking all of my Pellatarrum stuff, editing it into a coherent whole, prettying it up with some art and nice typesetting, and selling it online. Definitely as a PDF, but perhaps also as a print-on-demand.

Here are my questions for you, dear readers:

Would you buy such a thing?

Would you buy a print version?

I realize that Pellatarrum is currently incomplete. What elements would you require it have for you to consider it complete?

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

At first I thought I was just tired from dealing with the double threat of Holy Week and the bureaucratic nonsense involved in getting mom and me CWP permits (BTW, they're in the mail now, and for those concerned it took us about a week to get all the necessary crap together -- they could have gone out earlier if we'd rushed but we wanted to make sure everything was correct) but now that they're in the hands of the USPS and Easter is over, I'm still tired and having trouble finding the motivation to do anything. I think this is my brain shutting down in an attempt to deal with stress.

As I said, red tape is annoying and exhausting in that nitpicky kind of way. Then there was Easter, with all the church services, and my dad staying home a lot and keeping me from getting much in the way of writing done. But there's also that mid-level concern I have with potential Martin/Zimmerman riots spreading my way (not likely, since we're an hour northeast of Sanford, but still possible) as well as the general annoyance with politics and the election season, and right now I don't want to do anything but sit in my command bunker made out of ammo cans and listen to zombie audiobooks while sharpening knives and painting my fingernails black.

I am, as they say, in a bit of a mood.

If I were a good Christian, I'd pray about it and trust in God to send angels to protect me, but the Big G and I have been at loggerheads as of late. I kind of want to bring my neighbors in on this as kind of an ad-hoc neighborhood self-defense force in case of trouble, but I have no idea how to broach the subject without sounding like an utterly paranoid loon ("Tell me, have you thought about what small-unit counter-insurgency tactics you'd use to protect your home during cases of civil unrest" doesn't exactly trip off the tongue).

So, if any of you are interested in writing some guest articles for me, that'd be great. I need some mental health days.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Sorry folks, but between Holy Week shenanigans and getting a concealed carry permit for my mother and me, I've been so busy that I haven't had the time to even think about blogging. So, yeah, I've kind of come up short in terms of thoughtful or sentimental Easter fare.

You'll have to make do with this, I suppose.

3And He spoke this parable unto them, saying,4"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it?5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'7I say unto you that likewise more joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.

Monday, April 2, 2012

They aren't, strictly speaking, undead (elementals were never alive to begin with), but these "predamentals" are to regular elementals as vampires, ghouls and the like are to ordinary humans: by feeding upon the life force of those they slay, they extend their ability to stay on the Material Plane. The exact metric is not known, but obviously, the more powerful the prey they consume, the longer they may stay upon Pellatarrum.

Centralia, Pennsylvania is a great example of a fire predamental. On the one hand, it doesn't look especially active; on the other, it's basically killed an entire tow. It's also spreading, there's no way to put it out, and no one knows how long it will burn (it's already been burning for 50 years now.)

I don't have a good real-life example of an air predamental. Yet. Perhaps a reader can suggest a location where random, strong gusts of wind have caused people to fall to their deaths?

Tonight my mom and I attend our required safety certification and training thing for our concealed carry permits. This will likely be four hours of "Here are the places that don't allow you to carry" and "This is what you do when a cop pulls you over" and "For God's sake don't pull your gun except as a last resort" and "It probably wouldn't hurt to have a lawyer on speed dial."

But since it's not the future yet, I can't comment on what's in the class until I've actually attended it. That will have to wait until later tonight or tomorrow.

Right now I'm working to calculate the precise blood sugar and caffeine dosage I need in order to stay awake in case the class is boring, but not so much that I fidget and squirm. Suggestions and recipes are always welcome!

you can't tell me what toys i can play withyou can't tell me not to grow my cropsyou can't tell me which sex i can marryits so scary the weird way that you watch

you know the typemake you think about suicide they're so super hypethen you know that pinkie pie so freakafiedwhatever sweets inside won't suffice

(beat) dash is lass with the rainbow manepass so fast make you lose your coolshe's a mine detector a cloud collectorwhen's the last time you heard a rainbow boom

everytime somebody rocks a rainbowlike R2 or lucky charmsthey gotta get all aggro back in the backroommake sure nobody doin any harm

bunch of baloney just a bunch of poniessave that horseshit for your barnthe only danger in this mangeris finding friendship on the farm

you can't tell me what toys i can play withyou can't tell me not to grow my cropsyou can't tell me which sex i can marryit's so scary the weird way that you watch

don't talk smack unless they force youif it's applejack you might taste her horseshoehelp her with the harvest if she requests it,her heart is the part that is heavily invested

herd not a pack with some stand back dramatics,don't panic when they stampede through the staticu heard that it's wack heard friendship is magicbetter than back in the paddock

some ponies know their cutie marksand some must crusadesome people know their role in life,and some others must waitI love my little ponymy little pony is greati wish that people were poniesthen life wouldn't be lame

you can't tell me what toys i can play withyou can't tell me not to grow my cropsyou can't tell me which sex i can marryit's so scary the weird way that you watch

I thought the doom metal outro was a nice frisson of cognitive dissonance. Hat tip to Scumfuck for the link, and that's a phrase I never thought I'd ever say...

Now I bet you guys thought that was the big special 1000th post, right? You're wrong. You're SO wrong. That was the just aperitif.

And just in case you are one of the small-minded people who are offended by the word "derp," you are cordially invited to view this video containing rebuttal by someone who was in special education classes during school.

The Fine Print

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